Peter A. Muzinich focuses his practice on a wide variety of business, tax, and transactional matters, from advising start-up businesses on which entity to form to assisting established businesses with mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Muzinich also handles real estate transactions and tax controversy matters with the Internal Revenue Service and the California Franchise Tax Board.

A large portion of Mr. Muzinich’s practice is dedicated to estate planning, post death administration and business succession planning for family owned businesses. He is involved in assisting families and individuals with basic estate plans implemented to avoid court supervised probate administrations to multi-million dollar estates that are implementing sophisticated strategies to minimize federal gift and estate taxes.

Mr. Muzinich is considered by many CPAs and practitioners in the region to be one of the top experts in implementing discount planning for family owned businesses. Mr. Muzinich finds that it is very important to not only practice in estate planning but also to practice estate and trust administration such that the planning techniques that are implemented can be seen all the way through to completion and common IRS and other challenges can be fully understood and anticipated. Mr. Muzinich is especially qualified to handle estate planning for small and large business owners and executives who have a need to implement special provisions in their estate planning documents to conform to certain business needs and commitments.

Mr. Muzinich received his J.D. and LL.M. in Taxation from the University of San Diego, and earned his B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) in 1993. While at the University of San Diego Law School, he assisted law professor C. Hugh Friedman in amending and updating the Rutter Group practice guide on corporations for two consecutive years.

Mr. Muzinich is currenty legal counsel and on the board of directors for the Goleta Vally Chamber of Commerce. He is committed to youth-based community organizations and provides leadership as Chairman of the Board of the Santa Barbara Youth Music Academy, as a board member for the United Boys and Girls Club of Santa Barbara and as a member of the steering committee for the Scholoarship Foundation of Santa Barbara's South Coast Business & Technology Awards.